You are here

Διεθνή Media

Chris Skidmore believes in the smallest possible state. Is he going to rescue higher education from market meltdown?

We are now on our third universities minister since the Conservatives shed their pesky Liberal Democrat partners following the 2015 election. The first two were victims of the Brexit Moloch. First up was Jo Johnson, who piloted the Higher Education and Research Act through parliament, only to be rewarded with relegation as minister for London. He resigned in the summer and is now a fully signed-up supporter of the “people’s vote”.

Next up was Sam Gyimah, who in the end found the contradiction between his responsibility to do the best by universities and the damage Brexit would cause too much to take and also resigned. He, too, supports a second referendum.

Research reveals females deemed intellectually inferior, with prejudice present present in children as well as adults

Women and girls are less likely to be seen as suited to brainy tasks, researchers have found, in the latest study to shed light on gender biases.

Female students do better at school and are more likely to go to university than their male peers. However, the latest study reveals that females are deemed intellectually inferior, and that such prejudices are present not only in adults of both sexes but in children too.

Readers discuss ways to make entry to Oxford and Cambridge fairer to students from state schools

The Sutton Trust, when rightly calling for Oxford and Cambridge universities to “make greater use of contextual data in their admissions process” does not go far enough (Eight top schools dominate entry to Oxbridge, 7 December). A slim chance of success is not the only reason “high-flying pupils from state schools” are far less likely to apply for an Oxbridge place. Fear of humiliation in an interview designed to trip up all but the best prepared must play a significant role; those interviews must focus more on what the candidate knows, and how knowledge gaps can be filled. If private schools have to rely on “personalised mentoring and university preparation classes”, what chance do pupils coming from underfunded state schools have?

“Top” universities should not be choosing candidates schooled in their requirements and traditions, but offering opportunities to the genuinely talented, who gain good grades in spite of their backgrounds. A pupil with three grade Bs at A-level from a school in an impoverished area probably has more talent and innate ability than a pupil from a privileged background even if A-level grades are higher!

Photographer Andrew Moisey uncovered ritual hazing, extreme drunkenness and toxic masculinity on one college campus – from men destined to be America’s future leaders

Last year in the US, four freshman students died as a direct result of hazing rituals during college fraternity initiation ceremonies. All the deaths occurred during or just after drinking bouts in which the victims consumed vast amounts of spirits in a short space of time while older students egged them on. One of the deceased, Maxwell Gruver, 19, a student at Louisiana State University, was found to have had a blood-alcohol level over .49 g/dl at the time of his death – just .31 is considered life-threatening.

“Nobody can physically drink that much ... You have to be forced to drink it,” his mother told ABC news. “It’s senseless. I mean, how is making your brother do all these things, and humiliating somebody, a brotherhood?”

University professors among hundreds who object to award of research job to Noah Carl

University of Cambridge professors and academics from around the world have criticised the appointment of a social scientist whose work they say has stoked “racist, xenophobic, fascist and anti-immigration rhetoric”.

A letter protesting about the appointment of Noah Carl to a prestigious research fellowship at St Edmund’s College claims that Carl’s work focuses on “academically discredited lines of inquiry” involving race and genetics.